With each passing year, the Internet becomes a greater and more permanent fixture in our daily lives. Once limited to communication between massive servers or other large machines associated with military or other government organizations, Internet connectivity eventually expanded to include academic institutions, home computers, mobile computers and telephones, e.g., “smartphones,” over time, in progressively faster connections having increased speed and reliability. Today, the number and types of machines that may access the Internet continue to increase, as a wide array of devices including but not limited to televisions, refrigerators, automobiles, home security systems and even wristwatches may now access the Internet through various wired or wireless means.
While the advancement of Internet technologies, and their expansion to more and more devices, systems or sensors, have enabled humans to efficiently and effectively receive, access, transmit and store information or data to and from a wider variety of platforms, the use of that information or data has remained the same. For example, a browser or an E-mail client operating on a smartphone or a wristwatch typically functions in the same manner as a browser or an E-mail client operating on a desktop computer or a laptop computer, i.e., by rendering interactive pages and receiving interactions with such pages from a user, albeit on a smaller screen.
Moreover, by its very nature, the proliferation of Internet-enabled devices has naturally increased the risk that sensitive information or data may be accessed by unauthorized users, either intentionally or inadvertently. Because information or data may pass between and among multiple computing devices, and along multiple connections, any of which may be subject to hacking or theft via one or more surreptitious means, protective measures must be taken when access to a network or one or more Internet-enabled devices is desired on a temporary basis.